Sam's experiences are far from rare among Britain's Jewish population today.

Recent figures released by the Community Security Trust (CST), who advise the Jewish community on matters of anti-Semitism and security, reveal a 50% leap in violent attacks last year.

Now Metropolitan Police records corroborate the Trust's figures for 2004 in the capital.

Graves desecrated

More than 500 incidents were recorded last year by the CST, ranging from life-threatening assaults to criminal damage to property. One-fifth of these were carried out by elements of the far right.

Yet according to many in the community, it's the desecrations of Jewish graves by neo-Nazis which really sends a shudder through the population, with its echoes of the past.

It's particularly distressing for elderly Jews who have lived through all this before

Sam

"It's particularly distressing for elderly Jews who have lived through all this before," says Melvyn Hartog, who maintains United Synagogues' cemeteries.

He describes what it was like to discover that Jewish graves at the Redan Road cemetery in Aldershot had been desecrated with swastikas, SS signs and Combat 18 insignia twice over a three month period:

"It was one of the saddest days of my life. One of the first graves I saw was the war grave of a Jewish second lieutenant who died in 1941.

"This man gave his life like many thousands to rid the world of the Swastika, now one had been placed on his grave."

He pauses to compose himself. "I just wish whoever did this could come face to face with this soldier. I wonder how brave he would be then?"

While the number of attacks by the far right on Jewish targets have remained more or less static in recent years, opportunistic or random attacks - like Sam's - have surged.

Middle East conflict link

The CST say around 120 incidents in Britain last year were directly linked to tension in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

New research due to be published next month, for example, reveals a 'spike' in anti-Semitic incidents in London, during April-May 2002, when the Israeli Defence Force launched its incursion into the Jenin refugee camp.

The indications are that Orthodox Jews, with their easily-identifiable appearance, are bearing the brunt of such attacks.

In North London's Stamford Hill, home to one of Britain's largest Orthodox communities, feelings are running high, especially after a recent spate of violent attacks.

One parent at a Jewish school who asked not to be named said: "There's a feeling of fear and nervousness, of always looking over your shoulder."

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